I saw this as part of a store's Mother's Day display last weekend. I really can't stand it when inanimate objects try to tell me what to do. I have problems with authority figures, especially when they are shitty ceramic knick-knacks.
UPDATE: Enlightened Andrew will try to figure something positive to post soon because he is sick of all this negativity.
I might be the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.
I should probably start at the beginning.
Yesterday I woke up to find that my post about The Elvis Costello Spinning Songbook show had been linked to/from the official Elvis Costello website! You can imagine how excited I was about this. They had used large portion of my text (though strangely not the part about how fantastic I am) and several of my photos. This was shaping up to be the best day ever!
Elvis Costello & This Is Some Life You've Got BFF 4evr!
They had included a link to the full post at the bottom of the page so some of the people who saw it on his site came here to visit my site. I'm sure they thought something else interesting might be here and they were thoroughly mistaken, but they were here none the less. So I checked my stat counter and it was at 322 page views for the day at 8:45 in the morning. I know this isn't a really impressive number for most people, but it's approximately 318 more hits than I get for an entire day. I don't have many friends.
Unfortunately I had to go to work instead of basking all day in the glow of being an internet messiah. Goddamnit. I know an opportunity for greatness if it is willing to hit me over the head and this one was! So instead of doing a good job at work, all day long I schemed about how I could capitalize on my good fortune and keep some of my special new friends coming back.
One of my new friends that had originally alerted me to the fact that I was a part of the looming Elvis Costello Empire was, as it turns out, the husband of my favorite amateur go-go dancer from the concert. He had found the blog, like a good husband would, by searching the internet for photos of his wife. He saw that I had surreptitiously taken some photos at the show and was hoping that I might have one of her on stage that didn't get posted. I did and would certainly contact him when I got home from work that night.
When I got home and eagerly logged in to the site my hopes of internet domination were crushed. The goddamn Blogger system had gone all haywire and was offline! OFF-FUCKING -LINE! Apparently the folks at Blogger didn't care in any way that this was supposed to be my big day. Goddamnit. When I was finally able to check my stat counter the next morning, I had amassed a grand total of 327 page views. For those of you that are mathematically challenged like myself, I've gotten out a calculator and done the math for you. That's five more hits in twenty four hours. FUCKING FIVE! That is no where near nine katrillion! While still more than my usual daily total, it was more than a little disappointing.
Also, there would be no new flood of readers either. By now Elvis had played a show in Los Angeles and there were all new posts on his website in the spot where mine used to be at the top of the page. It was official, I was moldy old news.
And on top of that, all the comments that had been left previously that glorious day had been deleted by Blogger for some reason. How am I supposed to feel loved without my comments section?
I still wanted to send the husband his photo, but I no longer had his comment to contact him. Luckily, this giant head of mine sometimes retains things besides alcohol. I remembered a YouTube clip he had posted that I could use to contact him. Or so I thought before I found out I was a moron. I was at the goddamn YouTube site trying to leave him a message for more time than I care to admit.
First, I tried using my Blogger account and they wanted me to activate my Google account, which I thought was the same fucking thing, but I did it anyway because I just want to be helpful. After I did that, I was informed that I had to open a YouTube account or my head would be chopped off. I'm not sure they actually said that, but they seemed fairly adamant. I did that too, I think.
This seems excessive, even for me.
I seemed ready to leave my message so I typed it in to the comment box and hit post. I got some 'pending approval' message, so I waited. Nothing. Maybe this is how they do it. Maybe not. I refreshed the page and my comment had disappeared, so I re-wrote it and published it again. My browser window is still open and my 'pending approval' message is still there three hours later.
UPDATE: I refreshed the page and there are still NO comments from me. Such an idiot.
I know that goddamn teenagers can use this motherfucker. Why can't I figure out something that millions of dope smoking morons can manipulate with minimal effort? My stupidity knows no bounds. I just wanted to say thanks to the husband-guy for his comment and get him his picture. Everyone would be happy! That is apparently never going to happen.
Well if you've come back Husband-Guy, this is the photo that I have been trying in vain to get to you. It's kind of blurry, but it's the best one that I have.
Now that this post is completed, I'm off to label everything in my apartment because in my fog of dismal stupidity I could quite possibly forget the intended use of common household items.
Despite my immense and vocal fan base that regularly cries out for justice, I have never been even close to being treated like a celebrity. I have languished in my mediocre regular-ness for what seems like an eternity. Do not cry for me though, friends. Finally, after all these years, my suffering has ended! On Sunday night at the Fox Theater in Oakland, I got to drink from the sacred cup of whatever the hell it is that would make me more important than 97% of the people in my immediate vicinity.
After staying too long at Norodd's house so I could stuff more delicious pre-concert barbecue chicken and booze in my face, I was running a little behind schedule so I hustled over to the venue with all due haste. Amazingly, the first side street that I turned on to find parking had an open spot and my night was off to a great start.
I know that an open parking space is not like picking up Natalie Portman on 'Super-Low-Standards Night' at the local dive bar, but I intensely hate driving around trying to find parking. I usually just park in the first spot I find that is even remotely in the vicinity of my destination and walk the rest of the way, no matter how far it might be. Luckily for me, this spot was two short blocks from the theater!
before the show started...
Because I am a fantastic person, I had previously decided to sneak in my camera so I could snap a few photos for my hordes of loyal readers who could not make it to the big show. I had been incredibly nervous in anticipation of the security folks finding my camera when they searched me (the chances were high since it was only 'hidden' in my shirt pocket), but they just waved me in and told me to enjoy the show. Awesome.
I showed my ticket to the usher and he said 'down the right side, all the way to the front'. Now, I'm not the type of person who gets this kind of ticket often so these words sounded pretty fucking cool. And it was true! Each time I came to a new usher, they would point towards the next lower section and say 'keep going'. Awesomer!
By the time I got all the way down to the section right in front of the stage, I was grinning like a moron. Most of the concerts that I attend are general admission so I can get right up next to the stage if I desire, but this was a kick-ass seat RESERVED JUST FOR ME because I am better than regular people and I deserve it.
I had seen where my seat was supposed to be on the ticket website seating map, but I was trying to keep my expectations low because there was probably some sort of mistake and my seat was actually located in a hallway next to the restrooms or some fucking thing.
There was no mistake.
If you ever have the chance to be one of the 'special' people (not like protective pillows tied to your head and hands special, I mean the good kind!) I highly recommend it. When I turned around to look at the rest of the 'averages' that were sitting behind me I almost died. There was this sea of faces! Faces that I pitied for their not being a good enough person to deserve to sit where I was at that moment. Even the people in the row directly behind me were just a little bit crappier than me.
Thirty seconds later the house lights went down. Needless to say Elvis and the band taking the stage did nothing to relieve my idiot perma-grin. They sounded amazing! I can't begin to describe the quality of the music in any way that could possibly explain how happy I was that night so I will leave it up to you to find a more competent reviewer somewhere else who isn't a gushing fan-boy.
As a special feature of this tour, Elvis had listed a bunch of his songs on the Spectacular Spinning Songbook and was inviting selected members of the audience up to the stage to give it a spin. The song that the wheel landed on would be the song that the band would play. I would've probably pissed myself if I got a chance to go up there and spin it, but I desperately wanted to anyway. As we have learned previously, that night I was more important than 97% of the people in attendance of the concert, but this still left 3% to crush my dreams.
In the weeks leading up to the concert I tried not to think about the possibilities too much. I didn't really think I would get picked, especially if my seat was out in the hall as I feared, but secretly I kept hoping anyway. I even had a song lined up if I spun the wheel and it said I got to request a song. I had absolutely NO knowledge of there being a 'request' section of the wheel, but I thought I'd better be prepared just in case.
I would've requested 'Tokyo Storm Warning'.
or 'I Want You'.
or 'Indoor Fireworks'...
Goddamnit. I could never choose just one.
It turns out that there was a request portion, but the only person who got to make a request was Mr. Costello himself. Well if it isn't gonna be me...
Those goddamn life-ruining shitbird 3% bastards that got to go up on stage, after they spun the wheel, were offered a drink and a seat at a special (not the eating ping-pong balls filled with tuna special, I mean the good kind!) lounge at the side of the stage or they could dance for the crowd in a go-go cage. A surprisingly high percentage of people elected for the cage. Some were funny and awkward, one was beautiful and awkward, and one looked like a drunken cow when she fell out of the cage.
My favorite of the amateur dancers managed to lure Elvis into the cage with her for a brief dalliance before he slyly hopped out the other side. She was charming and funny and somehow managed to cage dance to a slowish tune about a husband cheating on his wife called The Long Honeymoon. When she had originally spun the wheel, people had cheered for the song as it came up because they had been told that it was her fifteenth wedding anniversary, the song obviously had the word honeymoon right in the title, and her husband was somewhere in the crowd. Often lyrics aren't listened to because people are simple.
Elvis said he liked this amateur dancer's lid.
I feel like I should say more about the music, but my abilities to describe what I heard and how delighted I was are lacking... let's see, um, Great Songs. See what I mean?
Maybe I could explain it a different way.
Elvis played a song that I always love on his live recordings, and don't think I've ever actually heard in person, called God's Comic. It is a beautiful, tragically funny song that has this part where traditionally a live audience is supposed to shout the phrase 'Now I'm dead!' back at Elvis after he sings his line. This is not a hit-single type of song and apparently not a whole lot of people around me knew we were supposed to participate. So on the first time through, almost no one near me, besides me, sang the line. It didn't get any better the second time either. Normally this would encourage me to pipe down and not sing it at all the next time through. I'm definitely not the singing by myself type.
I sang it louder each time because I was so happy that night.
Years ago, Mom would have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days in a row fairly frequently. She always had something going wrong with her. I believe that the term that her doctor used during one of her last visits to describe her current condition was 'cancer factory'. I'm sure this was not as callous as it sounds here. My Mom had been living with one type of cancer or another for fifteen years and it was not news to her that she was in bad shape.
When Mom was in the hospital I would go by and visit her, of course. We aren't an emotionally open family and it's always been hard for us to actually say how much we care about each other. Instead, we've always relied on each other just knowing from our actions how we feel. Everybody in the family had 'the thing' that they did to let Mom know that we loved her.
Dad was always at the hospital for as long as he possibly could be, to do whatever he could for her. He would've done anything.
My older bother Mike's ridiculously loud laugh couldn't be less appropriate in a quiet hospital, but there's no place that it was needed more. His wife Fran (a pearl among the emotionless robot swine) always made an appropriately large fuss, asking all the right questions, and bringing thoughtful special gifts that made Mom feel important every time.
Jason wasn't always great at showing up for this kid of thing and when he did he was usually so visibly uncomfortable that you could see that just making it in the door was his 'thing'.
Since being a sarcastic dickhead is not a very useful skill when some one is suffering, I didn't really know what my 'thing' to help Mom was going to be. She knew though. One of the times I went to visit her she asked me to brings some markers and paper. Mom wanted me to sit with her and draw Stick Figure Andrew for a while. I've never been sure whether it was more for her or for me.
I spent all afternoon there drawing these stupid stick figures about anything that happened in that room. And if nothing happened for a few minutes we would start talking and that would lead to some ridiculous idea like the time that Stick Figure Andrew decided that he was a doctor because he had found some surgical gloves in one of the hospital's cabinets while visiting Stick Figure Mom who was sick. He was not obviously fit to be a doctor and hi-jinks ensued. When the nurse came in we were laughing like two idiots.
At some point after I had gone home, Mom asked the nurse for some tape and she stuck our drawings up all over her room. She said said it made her feel good. She wasn't the only one.
I love you Mom.
Last month my friend Saul asked me if I would paint the Dan's Bar logo on the wall behind where the bands play. For some reason I agreed to do this even though I have ZERO experience with this kind of thing. I was most likely drunk. Or I was hoping to be drunk in the very near future. I'll agree to almost any retarded scheme for the promise of booze.
I finally got some time in my schedule, so one day last week I got up bright and early and hustled down to the bar so I could get to work. The black parts on the sides of the tan area had already been painted previously by Jose so all I had to do was super-size the world's most poorly designed logo so it would horrify people with taste for miles around. I've tried for years to get Saul to redesign the logo, but he prefers the 'if it ain't broke' theory. And who am I to argue? I don't have my shit together enough to own a car of the non-death trap variety let alone a successful business.
Stay in the lines! Stay in the goddamn lines!
So like a good little worker bee I got right to work. And if my pants are any indicator, I'm VERY excited about painting the top of that D!
After I finished the second coat of white I painted some of the black around the letters, leaving a one inch-ish border of the wall color around everything to be painted silver later. Saul said that Jose would come in later that night and use a roller to finish painting the tan parts black so I didn't have to do everything.
Five minutes later I was painting the fucking tan parts black. I don't know how he does it, but if Saul's involved I always find myself doing things that I didn't think I was going to be doing. Luckily, he didn't really have anything else to do at that moment so he found himself painting the black areas too! All of his other lackeys must've been busy or something.
Saul loves the mural but isn't so sure how he feels about me.
The next day I came back and spent most of the day painting the silver around the edges of the logo. There aren't really any 'in-progress' painting pictures of this day because Saul was busy elsewhere and I had snapped at one of the grizzled old daytime regulars so none of them were talking to me anymore. Tim, one of the daytime bartenders, was odd and funny as usual, but he was working hard on getting the patrons riled up about dumb crap like royal weddings and hats so I didn't want to bother him by asking him to take pictures of me painting a comparatively uninteresting silver line.
The daytimers had been muttering all morning about how they didn't like the silver, because with the black it was the colors of the Oakland Raiders. Holy shit! You mean that black and silver NEVER coexisted in each other's vicinity before the Oakland Fucking Raiders INVENTED this color combination? They are geniuses! You know who are NOT geniuses? Daytime drunks.
One of those jackasses decided to tell me how much he didn't like the color that had been chosen for this part of the project that he had absolutely NOTHING to do with, so I said...
Sometimes I get crabby. I didn't really yell at him, but I did say those exact words and they were loud enough to make it clear to the entire bar that I was no longer seeking consultation of the retarded variety.
Later that night Saul took this picture of Zoo Station, an excellent U2 tribute band, getting things started at Dan's in front of my shiny new logo mural thing. I think it's cool the way it looks like it really glows when the spotlights hit the white and the silver.
I guess silver was the right color after all, motherfucker.
Last night at the bar, Mandy was telling me that sound travels in direct lines from the speakers at a concert and how she uses this information to determine her sweet spot for maximum enjoyment. She knows exactly where her's is at, but it's a secret so you're going to have to figure out where your own sweet spot is for yourself. Unless you have REALLY helpful friends...
This is the view of my easel (and some elaborate gold frames that I'm saving until I'm a better painter) from the desk chair that I am apparently going to occupy for the rest of eternity as I sit at my computer, struggling to keep focused on designing Galen's logo thing. I will apparently use any excuse to not have to be doing the thing that I am supposed to be doing if that thing is anything besides the thing I want to do. Thing!
Waiting patiently over there for me to finish are the stretcher bars for my new painting. Soon enough we will be together...